News & Stories

One year ago, Alex Steffen took the stage at Town Hall and called on Seattle to become North America’s first carbon neutral city. A year later, that goal is on its way to becoming official city policy. Tomorrow (Wednesday, November 3) at 7:30 p.m., Steffen returns to talk about cities, Seattle, innovation, the climate, the […]

From the National Partnership for Women and Families Everyone gets sick. When workers have access to paid sick days to use for their own and family members’ illnesses, they recover faster, are more productive, and obtain timely medical care, thus holding down healthcare costs. This is a tremendous benefit to businesses. Yet nearly two in […]

News that Washington’s low-wage workers will receive a 12 cent cost-of-living adjustment in 2012 (per the state’s 1998 voter-approved initiative) wasn’t greeted by local business lobbyists with much cheer. Which is puzzling, because there is clear evidence that a strong minimum wage creates more prosperous customers – and you would think that is exactly the […]

Work hard, play by the rules, and you’ll get ahead. That notion isn’t just America’s great promise to its people — it is the great project of the American people. But today, that promise is fading as too many workers and families are struggling just to stay in the game. At the Economic Opportunity Institute’s […]

The Center for Economic and Policy Research has just released a new report exploring the facts behind recent calls for raising Social Security’s retirement age. [Full disclosure: Dean Baker, CEPR’s co-director, is a member of EOI’s board.] In their own words: As evidenced in a recent statement from the American Academy of Actuaries, some politicians […]

The Institute for Women’s Policy Research has collected new data finding widespread support for Social Security programs, especially among women and younger voters. A few of the highlights: The large majority of those polled back Social Security programs in order to ensure economic security for themselves in retirement. Seventy percent report that they do not […]

When lawmakers come back to Olympia next January, they’ll face an estimated $3 billion revenue shortfall thanks to the ongoing recession/weak recovery – and that’s on the heels of about $5.2 billion in cuts over the past three years. So how will this year’s ballot measures impact the budget? The Washington Budget and Policy Center […]

Join Marilyn Watkins from the Economic Opportunity Institute and Jo Jacobsen from the National Alliance for Retired Americans for an informative presentation that debunks myths surrounding the future of the Social Security program. Learn how Social Security works for millions of Americans — and why it will remain strong for decades to come. Thursday, October […]

In the coast-to-coast battle over whether or not we should have laws requiring paid sick days, Kate Karpilow has two things to tell you. One, she has someone at home with congestive heart failure – so picking up the flu from a pharmacy clerk is a really bad idea. And two, if you’re worried about […]

A recent article by James K. Galbraith in Mother Jones News is in one respect a call to arms – a powerful reminder of how public decisions made by those we elect to office affect our lives and jobs, houses and health, and paychecks and wealth. But it is also a (perhaps unintentional) call for […]

From the Everett Herald: When I think about our future, I think about Mikey, Liana, David, Sean and Stephanie. They are among the high school students I coach in cross country at Ballard High School. They are not the fastest kids. They couldn’t even run around Green Lake last summer. But now they are completing […]

From the Columbia Journalism Review What Social Security means to real people Jennifer Tayabji is the kind of person that Alan Simpson [a member of the president’s deficit commission] likes to talk about. She’s young, and fits his conception of some retiree’s grandchild. As the former Wyoming senator likes to say, we have to fix […]

From the Washington Business Magazine: By Don Barbieri and Marilyn Watkins Initiative 1098 provides the right reform mix to create a brighter future for Washington: new investments in education and health care, tax cuts for small businesses and property owners and a modest new tax for the most fortunate. Main Street businesses struggling to survive […]

A small ray of light broke through Washington’s cloudy economic picture on Friday, with the announcement that the state’s minimum wage will see a 12-cent cost-of-living increase in 2011, per the state’s 1998 voter-approved initiative. A coalition of local community, youth, labor and other grassroots groups helped make the case for the scheduled increase, in […]

Via Sightline Daily: What if we had a democracy where the will of the majority couldn’t carry the day? What if a small minority of legislators had the power to block any law they didn’t like? It sounds crazy — and yet it’s the very principle underpinning Tim Eyman’s latest initiative, I-1053, up for a […]

There is also growing evidence that investments in early childhood education not only increase the chance that future adults will be economically successful, but also reduce the need for expensive social services and prison down the line. The most recent news comes via Thrive By Five Washington: One of the leading voices in economics and […]

Two recent pieces of economic analysis are putting the lie to some of the dire claims made by opponents of Initiative 1098. First, Mike Kimmel at Presimetrics runs the numbers and determines there is “a clear positive correlation between the top marginal tax rate and the growth in real GDP per capita over the next […]

Via the League of Education Voters: There has been and will continue to be a lot of talk about what I-1098 does  for the adults in Washington State – cuts state property taxes for everyone, eliminates or cuts B&O taxes for the vast majority of businesses in our state, and establishes a modest income tax […]

Anna Turner is publicly calling out her friends for not bothering to learn what they have at stake in Social Security: I don’t bring up Social Security much around my friends, probably because it’s not exactly the most riveting topic, but mainly because I know most of us in our twenties haven’t given our retirement […]

From the Everett Herald: Moneytree is the payday loan company headquartered in Seattle, with 130 branches in the Western U.S. In Everett you can get your payday loan from Moneytree on North Broadway or on Casino Road, and if that doesn’t work, just visit a branch in Marysville or Lynnwood or Monroe. But be careful, […]

Child care subsidies for low income working parents make it possible for children to receive quality child care in licensed facilities while their parents are at work. Without these subsidies, most low-income working parents would not be able to afford child care while employed. But the state’s revenue shortfall has taken its toll on this […]

From Public News Service: By Chris Thomas OLYMPIA, Wash. – Washington Governor Chris Gregoire has delayed her annual minimum-wage announcement for the upcoming year until this week. The Washington Attorney General, Rob McKenna, believes there hasn’t been enough change in the Consumer Price Index to justify a wage increase, although last month Oregon looked at […]

A new poll shows continued strong support for a higher minimum wage – but Washington’s groundbreaking voter initiative could be undermined by state Attorney General Rob McKenna. Governor Gregoire will have the final say. Washington voters were the first in the nation to approve indexing the state’s minimum wage to inflation. Now the popular measure, […]